The Effect of Virtual Reality Application on Independence and Hand Functions in Daily Life in Children With CP

The sample group of the research is children between the ages of 6-12, diagnosed with hemiplegic cerebral palsy, who are receiving inpatient treatment in the pediatric service of Ankara City Hospital Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Hospital, and their families. Statistical power analysis was performed to calculate the number of people required to be included in the study. Statistical power analysis was performed with G\*Power v.3.1.9.7 software. In the analysis, the Type 1 error margin (α) was accepted as 5% and the desired statistical power (1-β) was accepted as 0.80. In order to carry out the analysis, randomized controlled studies in the literature on the subject that reported effect sizes were examined. Studies have found that in virtual reality-based interventions applied to children with cerebral palsy, strong to very strong effect sizes were reported between intervention and control groups in variables such as upper extremity functions and performance in daily living activities (4, 7-11). When calculations were made using the strong effect size (Cohen's d = 0.80) in the sample size analysis, it was determined that the smallest sample size that needed to be reached for both groups was 26. Therefore, a total of 52 people were included in the study.